Diana Dennis

Is it a mistake to go back and visit your old home?

Yesterday I did just that,having first made the phone call to the present owners whom I had never met.

I was going to Kent anyway for a lunch party, being driven down in style from London in a Bentley.

As I walked up the drive of our former home of thirty four years, and heard the front door opening, my eyes filled with tears .It was the sight of the small boy that did it. He stood there with his parents. My mind went back forty years, forty one to be exact,on  April 25th, when we moved in with our three sons. The youngest was the same age as this one standing in the doorway. We were told his older brothers were playing in ‘the wood’ .

This turned out to be the the area we used to call ‘the paddock’ . Dick had planted trees years ago and now it was a wooded area. This is where our two labradors are buried. We scattered Dick’s ashes on their graves;  

The new owners asked why we had left. They could see the attachment I still felt for this 400 yr old house.

But I’m glad I went. And I may go again in the Spring.